


Prison Does Bad Things to Decent People (and then some good stuff happens too)

by Umbrella_ella



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: I have a solid idea of where this is going, M/M, and i'm really excited, at secondarysushicorps behest, prison!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3582552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrella_ella/pseuds/Umbrella_ella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eggsy looks around the small cell, big loomin’ faces glaring up at him from where he stands by the cell door, which is currently creaking shut. </p><p>Two months of his sentence down, and another 16 to go in this shit-hole. Perfect." </p><p>Or: Eggsy makes a friend in prison, and if that friend happens to be the most attractive man he's ever set eyes on, well, that's not bad, is it? It doesn't hurt that he throws a good punch, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prison Does Bad Things to Decent People (and then some good stuff happens too)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from secondarysushicorps on tumblr, who requested Prison!Eggsy meeting a mysterious man who claims to be a gentleman during his sentence.

Eggsy looks around the small cell, big loomin’ faces glaring up at him from where he stands by the cell door, which is currently creaking shut. 

Two months of his sentence down, and another 16 to go in this shit-hole. Perfect. In the corner, he spies a familiar face, and winces when he remembers exactly who it is. 

Abraham Carter, one of Dean’s mates, who took a special pleasure in trying to relocate Eggsy’s nose in a bar fight. Too bad Eggsy had relocated his bollocks before the big lad could get a fist in edgewise and taken off before the copper caught him. 

Nasty bit o’ mess that one, Eggsy reminds himself, and he glances around, looking for an empty spot to take a seat. 

A smaller man sits in the middle of the bench, balding and grey, and Eggsy decides that the old gaffer looks like he’s about to keel over, and he’d rather not be there when it happens. He steps in further, a fluorescent light shuddering above and lighting up the corners of the small room. A refined looking gentleman who looked particularly out of place in the dank atmosphere of the prison cell. The book in his hands seems to be particularly interesting, because that man is the only one who does not look up when Eggsy enters. 

If anything, there’s nowhere else to sit anyways. So, Eggsy trounces over to where the older man sits, silver gleaming at his temples, and wavy dark curls tucked behind his ears. 

"What're you 'ere for then, mister? Get a parkin' ticket?" Eggsy talks, knowing he’s loud, knowing he’s being ungraceful, and he doesn’t care, knees spread out in a wide stance before him, his left knee just ghosting the thigh of the man who still doesn’t look up. 

The man looks up suddenly when Eggsy bumps him, and Eggsy is startled to see a pool of beautiful brown beneath thickly framed glasses.

Something in the older man's eyes makes Eggsy regret the jab, and a steely glare stills Eggsy’s smug grin. Just as soon, however, it is gone, and the man smiles, his eyes warm again. Eggsy is reminded of cool, sticky chocolate ice cream in the summer heat of South London before the moment is lost and the older man resumes reading.

"No, dear boy, I'm afraid not. I've never had the misfortune of a parking ticket. I laundered money for some time," the man shrugs as if it's not a big deal, eyes still glued to the page, thumb absently rubbing at the corner of the page, and Eggsy’s reply sticks to the back of his throat as he continues, "I got rather good at it, twenty years on, but at some point, when you've done it as long as I have, you make enemies, slip up. Besides, I was tired of hiding, really."

Eggsy tries to imagine a younger version of this man, all posh sophistication in a well-tailored suit, chestnut hair slicked back with an air of meticulous precision, and, when he blinks, startling himself back to the present, finds that the man is turning the page of his book. Thin fingers, the fingers that a thief would die for, stroke at the spine of the novel at a rate that tells Eggsy the man is no longer really reading.

"You look more like a bloody salesman than a money launderer." Eggsy closes his eyes, regretting that remark. 

That's the point, Eggsy supposes.

A wry smile twists the man's lips into a gentle bow, and Eggsy is stunned to find himself wondering how those lips might feel on his throat. 

Before his thoughts can go any further, the man abruptly snaps the book he 's reading shut, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Eggsy reads, and stands, his full height impressive. 

The man carries himself sturdily, but carefully, and my god, even in his blue prison jumper, he commands respect. It makes Eggsy weak at knees, if he’s honest, and the slide of the man's left foot against the concrete floor as he moves in front of Eggsy is a mere whisper, and Eggsy sees then what caused his sudden movement. 

Carter is looming in front of him, of both of them, twenty stone shifting on long legs. The mysterious money launderer simply stands in front of him, Eggsy behind him, staring through the crook of the older man's elbow.

"Move out the way, old man. I don't know 'ho you fink you are, but you've no business puttin' your nose in other people's affairs. This is between us, right, Eggy? Finishin’ somefin’ we started a few months ago, aye?"

"Do leave the lad alone, Abraham. He's done nothing to you."

"Yeah, ya see, I would, but 'e 'asn't done nothin' for me yet, either…" Carter rolls his tongue in his mouth suggestively, slicking his yellowed teeth with his tongue before raising his eyebrows at Eggsy.

"I don't believe he owes you anything." The sheer politeness with which the man addresses Carter, all cool composure, formality where there was room for none, makes Eggsy swallow thickly. This is dangerous.

"What are you then, 'is pimp? More like his granddad. Like 'em young, mate?"

Eggsy closes his eyes in that moment and wishes that the older man, however impressive he thinks he might be, would just leave it be. He's no match for Abe Carter, not with his twenty stone and thick-boned stature, even with all his smooth talk. The way the man simply stares up at him, chin lifted, face set in bland disinterest, only makes Carter angrier, and Eggsy watches a trickle of sweat bead at his temple. 

Suddenly a meaty fist swings at Mystery Man's face, and Eggsy presses further into the wall, waiting, wide-eyed, for the sickening crack of bone beneath fist. 

It never comes.

Smooth movements, quick, precise, and the man shifts to the side, thrusting the heel of his hand up into the brute's nose. Carter stumbles back, cupping his nose, curses muffled beneath thick hands. There's blood dripping onto the concrete floor and spattering the tops of Eggsy’s white, regulated slip-ons, no and Eggsy can't quite take a breath. The cell is as quiet as a mausoleum, and Eggsy is very aware of Carter taking a seat on the bench, stuffing his sleeve up to his nose to stem the bleeding, which has yet to let up. Judging by the purple tinge and swollen look to the man's nose, it's probably busted, and Eggsy can't help be a little smug. 

The man takes a seat silently, sweeping a fallen lock of dark sorrel hair back behind his ear, his silvery temples glinting in the florescent lights, and picks up his book, resuming his reading. 

Eggsy absently wonders how they're going to get the dark stain out of the concrete, and tries not to stare. 

He almost says something more to the man, a thank you, anything really, but the words balloon in his throat and he can't manage it. 

Instead, he listens to the rustle of pages turning.

The wardens don't notice anything amiss until meal time, when the spatter of red blood has dried to a dark, ugly brown on the front of Carter's jumper, and the warden, imposing in that rugby-player-in-'is-spare-time way, barks at Carter to tell him who did it. 

There’s no need, really, because the mystery man, all smooth and unruffled, hair neatly in place, simply gets up, moves to the center of the cell and says: “Harry Hart, at your service. What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

And it’s then that Eggsy knows he is well and truly fucked.


End file.
